Newcastle director of rugby Rob Andrew insisted that his young charges had done the club proud at Vicarage Road yesterday, despite falling to a 27-18 Premiership defeat.

"Overall I thought we performed admirably against arguably the best pack in the Premiership, and we didn't let them boss us around as they thought they would," said Andrew.

"It finished three tries apiece, and had it not been for some difficult missed kicks we would have been in with a shout of at least a bonus point.

"We gifted them their third try when we dropped the ball under our posts, plus Toby Flood should have scored in the first half when he was virtually over the line and tried to offload it. There were lots of little things like that, but on the whole we competed extremely well against a very good side."

After a week that saw Peter Walton taking over the forward coaching duties, Andrew said: "It's been a very difficult week - these things always are - but that's the nature of the beast, and I think the players did themselves proud despite the result.

"I thought we deserved at least a bonus point, but having said that, if we hadn't fronted up and played well, we would have got absolutely hammered by what is a very good Saracens team.

"We have had a tough week, but the unity in the squad is tremendous."

One notable point was the huge number of home-grown players on show for the North Easterners. Andrew stated: "We started the game with 14 Englishmen in our starting XV, and ended with all 15 being English, more than half of them having come through our academy, which I think is a credit to this club."

Of immediate concern to Andrew and the Falcons management is the fitness of Jonny Wilkinson, who was forced to pull out of yesterday's game with a groin injury.

Andrew said: "We'll be investigating Jonny's injury and monitoring his progress closely but we won't be able to make any decision about his fitness until later in the week."